Deem not devoid of elegance the sage,
By Fancy’s genuine feelings unbeguiled,
Of painful pedantry the poring child,
Who turns, of these proud domes, th’
historic page,
Now sunk by Time, and Henry’s fiercer
rage.
Think’st thou the warbling Muses
never smiled
On his lone hours? Ingenuous views
engage
His thoughts, on themes, unclassic falsely
styled,
Intent. While cloistered Piety displays
Her mouldering roll, the piercing eye
explores
New manners, and the pomp of elder days,
Whence culls the pensive bard his pictured
stores.
Nor rough nor barren are the winding ways
Of hoar antiquity, but strown with flowers.

Ah! what a weary race my feet have run,
Since first I trod thy banks with alders
crowned,
And thought my way was all through fairy
ground,
Beneath thy azure sky and golden sun,
Where first my Muse to lisp her notes
begun!
While pensive Memory traces back the round,
Which fills the varied interval between;
Much pleasure, more of sorrow, marks the
scene.
Sweet native stream! those skies and suns
so pure
No more return, to cheer my evening road!
Yet still one joy remains: that not
obscure
Nor useless, all my vacant days have flowed,
From youth’s gay dawn to manhood’s
prime mature;
Nor with the Muse’s laurel unbestowed.

THOMAS GRAY

ODE ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OF ETON COLLEGE

Ye distant spires, ye antique towers,
That crown the watery glade,
Where grateful Science still adores
Her Henry’s holy shade;
And ye, that from the stately brow
Of Windsor’s heights th’ expanse
below
Of grove, of lawn, of mead survey,
Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowers
among
Wanders the hoary Thames along
His silver-winding way.

Ah, happy hills! ah, pleasing shade!
Ah, fields beloved in vain!
Where once my careless childhood strayed,
A stranger yet to pain!
I feel the gales that from ye blow,
A momentary bliss bestow,
As waving fresh their gladsome wing,
My weary soul they seem to soothe,
And, redolent of joy and youth,
To breathe a second spring.